Om Mani Padme Hum

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January 28, 2008

January 26, 2008

I officially came to LDC Malaysia during the 2007 Chinese New Year as their resident teacher. It has been a very successful and fulfilling year for me filled with much joy and satisfaction. I have many responsibilities which include teaching dharma, giving consultations, general advice and visiting those who need my attention especially those who are in pain and dying. I participate in prayers in time of my dharma brothers and sisters from the center’s needs, everybody is very happy and comfortable with my presence. This is one encouragement that I get that makes me enjoy my stay in Malaysia. The direct and indirect support extended to me by many people to fulfill my purpose of stay here in Malaysia which is to fulfill His Holiness Dalai Lama’s, Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s and Khenrinpoche’s wishes and to do accordingly with my late great master Geshela Lama Konchog’s holy wishes is very fulfilling. So every single moment I feel life is very meaningful because whatever I do in my day to day life during my stay here, I try my best to fulfill in accordance with my gurus wishes. However, I may still offend people and create misunderstanding though my body and speech which is totally due to my own habit. Nevertheless, I am confident that there are blessings from the gurus on whatever actions I perform. My stay in LDC, Malaysia is very comfortable and I like their food and also able to adapt to their weather. My health last year was also very good!

During my recent year end visit to Kopan, I tendered my resignation when I met Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche informing him that I was already in LDC Malaysia for a year and all have been progressing well. With respect to the students and members of LDC Malaysia and also in accordance to the great wishes of Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche, I reiterated that everybody in Malaysia including me are all very happy with the progress. I have done to my best ability to develop the centre from the spiritual point and this is definitely not possible without the full support from the center committees, students, members and friends. It is also my wish to further grow the center along Rinpoche’s long term plan for Malaysia in accordance to Tibetan Buddhism, Lama Tsongkhapa’s tradition and also to follow strictly the advice of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I think it is necessary for LDC to have a very qualified, highly realized and experience with good public relation skills, great wisdom, great compassion and knowledgeable resident teacher to lead. Hence, I offered my place to someone better who has these attributes which can benefit the center more.

Rinpoche was quite shocked to hear what I have said and Rinpoche expressed his happiness, blessing and asked me to re consider my request. He knows that everything went well and is extremely pleased with the great progress and benefits gained during my presence and commented that I am still the most suitable candidate for this position, requesting me to go back and continue my services in LDC Malaysia. I am honored and proud of myself that I have the full support from Rinpoche, all the members and students as well. At the same time, I also received similar comment and blessings from Khenrinpoche on the same matter.

So, my return to LDC Malaysia for the second year of stay will be filled with more hope of progress to Buddhadharma practices especially into every individual’s mental continuum, subduing their wild mind, deconstruct negativities, emotional problems, perpetuate virtuous actions, ultimately leading them to be perfect human being. That also includes leading a life most meaningful and harmonious among all the dharma brothers and sisters, all religion and all beings.

I am very happy to be back and I will do my very best to fulfill the wishes of my gurus and serve the members, students and friends. We also pray for the best, do the best in our ability, be happy every single moment, be contented with what you already have, be proud of who you are, enjoy whatever lifestyle you live. In short be happy and don’t worry!

January 24, 2008

Acknowledgement to Ms. Ella Brewer for allowing us to use the material published in this blog. For more information on her work, please visit http://www.pureview.co.nz/

One of the most loved and universally chanted by Buddhist throughout the world. This mantra is commonly known as the CompassionateBuddha's mantra. The Compassionate Buddha, fondly known as Kuan Yin by the Chinese, Chenrezig by the Tibetan, Avalokiteshvara in the ancient Sanskrit of India or as Kannon in Japan.

This six syllable mantra might look very simple and easy to recite, but it consists of 84,000 teachings of Buddha, the essence of all Dharma. No matter how little compassion we generated in our daily lives, we certainly have ties and connection with the Compassionate Buddha without realising it. As Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche has commented, just recite the mantra once, it purifies the four defeats of breaking the four root vows of self – liberation and the five uninterrupted negative karma. Even by reciting the mantra just one time, you collect the same merit as having made offering to an inconceivable number of Buddhas. It is good to recite the mantra and contemplate the meaning of the six syllables.

The first syllables OM consisted of A, U and M. They symbolise our impure body, speech and mind and also the pure exalted body, speech and mind of a Buddha. No sentient beings in the beginning or eons and eons before are free from faults and possesses good quality. It is a gradual process of transformation of our body, speech and mind from impurity states into pure Dharma.

The 2nd and 3rd syllables MANI means Jewel, symbolises factors of methods, compassion and love, the altruistic intention to become enlightened. Just as a jewel is capable of removing poverty or difficulties, similarly just as a wish fulfilling jewel fulfills wishes of sentient beings and the altruistic intention to become enlightened not for oneself but for the benefit of all sentient beings. His Holiness the Dalai Lama commented.

The 4th & 5th syllables PADME means lotus and symbolises wisdom. Just as a beautiful lotus grows forth from mud and is unstained by the dirt. It is equivalent to wisdom which is capable of keeping us out from contradiction.

The last syllable HUM means inseparability or indivisibility of the unity of method and wisdom in order to achieve purity.

Thus the six syllables, OM MANI PADME HUM means that in depending on the practice of the path which is an indivisible union of method and wisdom, we can transform our impure body, speech and mind into pure exalted body, speech and mind of a Buddha.

January 22, 2008

Since the launched of Geshe Tenzin Zopa’s blog on November 20th, 2007, we seem to have received endless good response.Many people have been writing directly to Geshe Zopa congratulating him and over 50 foreigners/students from the Kopan November (07) course who came up and congratulate him on the blog, some of them Geshe Zopa don’t even know.

Just before the launch of Geshe Zopa’s blog, we have successfully linked the blog to the Site Meter, a comprehensive real time website tracking and counter tools giving instant access to vital information and date about the site audience, a clear picture of who is visiting the site, where they come from, what interest them most, how they found you…etc.

Here are some details I like to share with all of you since the launch;

Report as at January 15, 2008

Total : 881 visits

This week :71 visits

Average per day:10 visits

Total paged view:2,162

Percentage breakdown of countries that log in;

Malaysia

44%

Singapore

42%

United States of America

3%

Nepal

2%

Taiwan

1%

Austria

1%

Hong Kong

1%

Canada

1%

Slovenia

1%

United Kingdom

1%

France

1%

Latvia

1%

Unknown

1%

Please continue to log into Geshe Zopa’s blog and help to spam this blog to as many people as you know.We will continue to upload as much interesting information as possible to benefit all.

Last but not least on behalf of the managing team, we like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for making Geshe Zopa’s blog a great success.It must be due to your love for Geshe Zopa that makes you want to find out more about him and the things he’s doing.

Much love and prayers,

Candy Tan(email – candytan@pd.jaring.my)

January 21, 2008

January 19, 2008

Thanks for informing me about your blog. I have seen it and I wish to congratulate you for such a well-designed blog. I'm sure many people have put in much time and effort to get it done. Now, I go in at least once a day to see if there is any update.

Meantime, hope you have a safe and fulfilling trip in Nepal and may you be blessed with good health and happiness always.

Thank you.

Best wishes,Louise

E-mail received on Dec 5th, 2007

Dear Geshela,

Thank you for the link, your website is super! I'm so glad your trip to Bangkok was so fruitful, that's really amazing! I can't wait for the next trip to happen. Do let me know in case we too are there :)

Once again, I really like your website!

Stay in touch,

Thi ^o^

Email received on Jan 7th, 2008

Dear Candy,

Somehow, I like this message most,

"Showing love and compassion to your family and friends is the start of dharma practice. When this is successful, then you will be able to work on greater love and compassion to others.." - Geshe Zopa

Take Fong

Email received on Jan 16th, 2008

Dear Candy,

Geshela's blog is awesome! It has tons of information pertaining to his teaching and his commitment to Dharma practices. I am impressed the 1st time I discovered it myself. Great Job!

I also love the online music i.e. the Chenrezig long version song. It is very uplifting and I want to download it from your source.

Keep up the great work! You are so blessed to have the great opportunity to work with him. He is such a wonderful and great monk. My hubby and I miss him very much... when he left for KL.

Stay in touch, keep blogging about Geshela's projects. It inspired so many dharma brothers and sisters,

January 14, 2008

I sincerely pray and wish that everyone is happy, healthy and prosperous and most importantly they have a meaningful life filled with great moments, days, weeks, months and year in 2008. It is definitely due to past collective good karma that we are still alive with the inspiration to be a better person and to actualize the perfection of our body, speech and mind. So we should be thankful and appreciate our previous lives where we have accumulated some good actions to have this opportunity in today’s life and also thankful to one’s parents who have provided this healthy physical form. Countless thanks also go to all the gurus, buddhas and bodhisattvas who have always blessed us to inspire the path of liberation. Therefore it’s important that all negative actions done in the past is purified now by applying the 4 opponent powers and one should remove these negative thoughts from one’s mind and never reflecting them again in the coming days, rather one should create good aura, good environment especially the contented mind with a lot of respect for yourself and others. Be more tolerant, generous and be more focus towards good deeds and put more joyous effort in one’s spiritual path to eliminate the disturbing mind and delusion and construct virtue mind, the altruism such as loving kindness, compassion and try to live a day to day life with wisdom, mindfulness and introspection which will only bring happiness and a meaningful life.

This year it’s especially important for us to actualize our compassion towards every living being and it’s suggested to accumulate the 6 syllable compassionate Buddha’s mantra as much as you can with the understanding that this 6 syllable is the antidote to pacifying of the 6 realm beings and each syllable take the responsibility to liberate the 6 realms beings to the state of peerless happiness. It is a beneficial practice to enhance happiness in oneself and others and it is a very effective practice to enhance health and longevity of your gurus, loved ones, dispel the obstacles in relationship, business and can enhance better education for children. It also helps somebody who have passed away, bringing them into rebirth in pure land where there is only happiness and no suffering.

In short, in everyday life it’s very important for us to think and live a life with this thought. Even ask oneself everyday “Don’t I think it is so nice and wonderful and meaningful to live a life thinking and doing my best to benefit oneself and others in this way?”

“As long as space remains, as long as sentient beings remainThen may I too remain to free the misery of the worldMay I become the complete cause for all other living beingsSlight happiness up to everlasting happiness”

January 12, 2008

I arrived in Kathmandu on 20th November 2007. The first thing I did was to pay respect to Tenzin Phuntsok Rinpoche and Khenrinpoche. We spent approximately one hour to talk about life in LDC Malaysia and other Kopan matters. After that Ven Rubina called up to say that we needed to start work immediately on the biography of Geshe Lama Konchog. This biography will be published by Wisdom Publication and I am now waiting for the final edited version by Ven Rubina. It could take six months to a year or more depending on her time and I also need to provide some materials, one of which is the collection of Geshe Lama Konchog’s advises written by him when he was in the cave. These materials need to be gathered from Tsum and I will only have the opportunity to get them few months later as Tsum is now totally covered with snow. They need to be translated into English by me and I also need to compile these amazing 400 over initiation implement drawings by Geshe Lama Konchog available for the book. Ven Rubina was still very keen to get more stories from some of the senior students who are still in life long retreat. Time is needed to get all these things done and I am very sure it will be a very interesting and remarkable book which talks about incredible stories in this 21st century where somebody is able to live a life like Geshe Lama Konchog. When I look back on the script, it is really amazing, very touching, very inspiring and very down to earth and it shows us the exact life of a Kadampa master.

Ven Rubina kindly provided time from her busy schedule to work on this biography and even though it was a very tiring task, we worked from morning to night for three consecutive days. Then some of my friends from Singapore arrived and I took three days off to bring them around for pilgrimage and then continued with work right up to Dec 6. On that day, I sent Ven Rubina off in the morning and receive the LDC group in the afternoon. It felt so refreshing to see all the LDC friends because the time I spent with Ven Rubina was very rush but due to our efficiency, we managed to come up to the final stage. I must say we both did an excellent job. From the bottom of my heart, I felt thankful towards Ven Rubina for all her effort, time, courage and many other things she have help out. In fact I should say the work of this biography is one of my main completed tasks upon return to Nepal and it’s now had been fulfilled.

The pilgrimage with LDC group consisted of approximately 15 members and students plus some from Indonesia and Thailand. Most of them are new to dharma but they have been very cooperative, very understanding, full of tolerance and very enthusiastic in visiting holy places and doing practices to their best ability. In fact we are able to cover very important holy places like one place called “Sango” which is one of Vajrayogini’s holy place, cave of 80 Mahasiddha and the cave of Milerapa. Each individual had inspiring experiences and some of these holy places were missed out by the previous group. So I must say this group is very lucky to be able to make it but they had to make the effort to climb stairs. On the first day after they checked into the Hyatt Kathmandu Hotel, they managed to view the wishfullfilling great Boudhanah Stupa to make their wish. I was telling them the story that the first time they set their eyes at the Boudhanah Stupa, whatever wish they make will 100 percent be fulfilled and there were many evidence that this had happened. That made them excited and I am sure they made great wishes which will be fulfilled. Boudhanah Stupa is definitely one of the greatest places to visit when you come to Nepal. So don’t ever miss it! The other holy places are like Swoyambhunath Stupa which is self-emanated and this Stupa was also blessed by all the 4 Buddhas who descended near the mountain called “Langtalungten”. We also went to visit the Buddha Kashapa Relic Stupa and Nagajuna’s relic stupa and the entrance to the naga land where Nagajuna went to get the sutra into this world. Other sites are Manjushri’s throne, Vajrayogini’s holy place where the 2 “Phamdingpa” brothers who achieved Vajrayogini’s enlightenment and lineage of Vajrayogini’s practice. Until today the original statue which manifested in the actual form of Vajrayogini used by these 2 great practitioners are still around. We were also fortunate enough to pay respect to the very important Guru Padmasambava’s holy place, the self arising Tara and other holy sites in Kopan and Kathmandu valley.

Everyone felt very happy and fortunate to spend time with Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche and received his precious teachings, initiations and blessings together with the little holy child Tenzin Phuntsok Rinpoche as well as with Khenrinpoche who gave them a personal guided tour around Kopan Monastery. They also received blessings from Khenrinpoche and had the opportunity to have a meal together with him.

LDC group did offer extensive pujas, sanghas offerings and donations to the monastery and these offering were also participated by others from Malaysia. They also offered hundreds of light in holy places and everyone was so touched that everywhere we went, whatever virtue or prayers done was dedicated to the dharma brothers and sisters in LDC, CGC (Penang), RJL (Triang) and Kasih Hospice. These touching moments brought tears to some of them. It only shows the care and love among them.

Of course everyone is overwhelmed with shopping. That is not surprising. I think everything seems nice, cheap, wonderful and necessary to have, especially the good quality tangkas, statues, prayer wheels and many other things. I can see that their ten days trip wasn’t enough and there were many other holy places to visit. So everyone pray and hope to go back again and again in this life time.

My trip to Kathmandu this time was again a very meaningful and happy trip. I had the opportunity to meet other friends from other parts of the world who attended the November Kopan course. They are from Singapore, Hong Kong but mostly from America, Europe and Australia. There were over 60 of them including the LDC group. It was also very nice of Angie and Cecilia from LDC who attended the whole November course and this is very inspiring and rejoicing. The hardship they had to go through to adapt with the weather, people, culture and course schedule was amazing but they expressed much joy and I can see it written all over their glowing face. Of course I am sure they were happy to see me too as I am part of them from Malaysia. I was very glad to see them healthy, happy and learning. I very much wanted to spend time with them but due to my endless packed schedule, I was not able to do so.

In the end I didn’t even spend time with Phuntsok Rinpoche, Khenrinpoche or even my family members but I am still very happy because this trip had been very beneficial with a good purpose.